engage – Key Technology Ventures AG

In 2003 engage – Key Technology Ventures AG left the inno Group to focus more strongly on its collaboration with leading universities and non-university research partners in the area of knowledge and technology transfer. This collaboration had existed since 1991, and engage now wanted to develop it further. The company headquarters are in Karlsruhe, but it also has branches in Rostock and Leipzig. The key competence of engage AG is creating value from intellectual property.

Using a systematic screening process, engage AG identifies ideas, inventions, technologies and research findings and assesses them according to their marketability. Drawing on its solid knowledge of potential applications and markets, the company then develops viable exploitation strategies. This technology screening forms the required planning basis for all transfer elements (collaboration, licensing, sale, spin-offs).

In general, engage AG follows a broad exploitation approach that involves considering parallels and looking out for synergies, giving equal attention to developing inventions and trademarks, and cooperating on research projects with third parties, as well as taking care of licencing and bringing products to market via research-based spin-offs.

Promising commercial approaches and business ideas are further developed in close dialogue with experts and relevant scientific institutions to allow them to be commercially exploited. This process considers the needs of scientists, institutions, business, politics and any investors.

engage AG gets involved as a partner in research-based spin-offs, supporting them strategically and with their day-to-day operations. Thanks to its links with an early-stage financing fund, engage AG has privileged access to venture capital. This has enabled it to help 15 companies get started over the past few years. As of May 2011, more than €15 million had been invested in these new companies.

engage AG started out in Karlsruhe but now works with over 25 research institutions throughout Germany. It has become established as an independent, inter-disciplinary marketing partner for publicly funded research. These institutions include Helmholtz Centres, Leibniz Association institutes and universities. engage AG’s international team, consisting of over 20 experts in various locations, focuses on various topics not related to the life sciences.

engage AG is part of a global network covering various fields of technology and applications. The members of the prestigious Global Advisory Board are proven experts from finance, an assortment of industrial sectors, and property rights management.